Family, A Tasertricks Fanfiction, Chapter 15

Title: Family
Universe: Marvel Cinematic Universe, post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Pairings: Darcy/Loki, Thor/Jane
Rating: T
Premise: When an assassination attempt outs Loki as Odin's usurper, the Allfather decides not to waste his time harboring a wanted fugitive and simply banishes his rebellious Jotun son from Asgard. And Darcy Lewis just wanted breakfast, not for the psychopath who tried to take over Earth to come seeking refuge at the last place imaginable. Post-CA: TWS. Tasertricks!

Chapter 15

It was the following morning at the Foster-Odinson-Selvig-Lewis household, and Darcy, Loki, Thor, and Jane were sitting at the kitchen table, having a late breakfast. Of course, for Jane, Loki, and Thor, this was a completely acceptable time to have breakfast, whereas Darcy was only up so late thanks to having gone to bed at a ridiculous hour the night before. Since Erik had gotten up shortly after Loki had retired to his bedroom after his fight with Darcy, he had already had breakfast hours ago and was now working privately in his bedroom.

Having been physically, psychologically, and emotionally exhausted and under the influence last night, Darcy had fallen asleep practically the moment her head had hit the pillow, and this morning, she found herself hating Loki with renewed energy. She still couldn’t see shit: Glasses were expensive, and payday wasn’t until two days from now. Two days of squinting at everything, and forget watching the TV or using a computer. And it was entirely Loki’s fault.

She hadn’t told Jane or Thor what had happened in the alley, and it was eating her up inside. Her conscience was screaming at her to tell them, screaming that it was only fair that there be consequences to Loki’s actions. But another part of her kept reminding her how much would be at stake if she did. How would Jane and Thor react? Would they kick Loki out? Doubtful, as that would put innocent people in danger. Would they turn him over to Tony Stark? More likely, and probably not the worst idea ever. But what would Stark do with Loki? Imprison him? Darcy doubted there was any prison on Earth that would hold Loki for all eternity. So then, what would happen if, after years of captivity, he escaped? The last thing Darcy wanted was to have an angry and resentful Loki start seeking war with humanity again.

But don’t you see, Darcy? He’s never stopped . . . .

Darcy chose to ignore that particularly condemning argument on her conscience’s part, as another thought struck her: Would she, Jane, and Erik be able to finish calibrating the S.E.E.R. computer to track the Aether without Loki’s help? There was always the possibility that being able to track the Aether was the key to defeating Thanos, and so, by sending Loki away, would they be practically granting Thanos his victory?

And finally, by far the most worrisome thought to have crossed Darcy’s mind: What if, upon learning what Loki had wanted to do to the man in the alley last night, Thor went into an uncontrollable rage and, whether intentionally or unintentionally, killed Loki?

Darcy continued thinking over her options in disgruntled silence, mashing her Lucky Charms with her spoon absent mindedly and glaring at Loki out of the corner of her eye. He was uncharacteristically quiet this morning, and, Darcy noticed with no small amount of satisfaction, he looked like he had barely slept. But unlike her, the bastard was actually eating, gradually making his way through a large plateful of the bacon and eggs Jane and Thor had prepared, undoubtedly trying to appear as if nothing at all sinister had happened the night before. But something sinister had happened, and the more Darcy watched Loki trying to behave like it hadn’t, the more she had to agree with her conscience that it was wrong to keep behaving like that herself.

“Darcy, where’re your glasses?” Jane asked thickly through a large yawn, a forkful of scrambled eggs halfway to her mouth. She had clearly only just noticed that Darcy was missing her eyewear. “You didn’t lose them, did you?” she asked reproachfully.

“Loki almost killed a man in an alley last night,” Darcy blurted out all at once.

Jane dropped her fork onto her plate with a clatter, and Thor turned to Loki with a shocked expression on his face. Loki, meanwhile, simply continued eating, as if he hadn’t just been mentioned at all.

“Is this true, Brother?” Thor asked him, swallowing heavily.

There was a slight pause, during which Darcy wondered whether or not Loki would be truthful with Thor, but then—

“Yes,” Loki answered calmly, using a knife and fork to cut himself a piece of bacon strip. “The man in question wished to have his way with Miss Lewis, so I stopped him.”

Jane gasped, throwing her hands over her mouth.

Thor’s face blanched. “I cannot believe what I am hearing . . . .” he rumbled.

Here it comes, Darcy thought, bracing herself. The shit’s finally gonna hit the fan.

“Are you saying, Brother,” Thor continued, looking furious, “that a man attempted to take advantage of the lady Darcy, and yet you let him walk away alive and well?”

Jane, who had made the mistake of taking a nervous sip from her mug while Thor had been talking, choked on her coffee and began coughing violently.

“What?” Darcy spluttered, gaping at Thor, never having expected that to be the response he would give.

“H-” Cough. “How—” Cough, cough. “How can you say that, Sw-” Cough. “—Sweetheart?” Jane finally choked out.

Thor looked around at her, bewildered. “Had you been in Darcy’s place, my love, and I in Loki’s, I wouldn’t have hesitated for an instance to kill the man who wished to violate you.”

Jane looked for a moment as if she were going to retort, but then averted her gaze, blushing.

Darcy rolled her eyes. Was she seriously the only one at this table who had a problem with needlessly killing people? Jane was clearly too smitten with Thor to think properly, and Thor didn’t seem to care at all: He was now looking between Darcy and Loki with his eyebrows furrowed, as if seeing something Darcy could not.

“So . . .” Darcy began slowly, continuing to address Thor, “. . . what you’re basically saying is . . . you would’ve committed murder and not thought twice about it?”

“‘Murder’?” Thor asked, with a hearty guffaw. “On Asgard we call it justice!”

“By the Allfather . . . .” Darcy muttered, while Thor continued to guffaw as if Darcy had said something truly hysterical.

“Darcy’s right, Sweetheart,” Jane said, finally coming back to her senses, although she still looked rather pink. “That might be justice on Asgard, but here on Earth we do things differently. So even if you and I ever do find ourselves in a situation like Loki and Darcy did, I don’t want you to kill anybody, all right? Not if there’s another way.”

Thor stopped laughing, although he still didn’t appear to fully understand the reasoning behind Jane’s request. Nevertheless, he nodded his shaggy, blond head and said, “Midgard is my home now. Therefore, I must do my best to abide by its laws.”

And that was it. Jane and Thor proceeded to enter into a lengthy discussion about how other Asgardian laws differed from those on Earth, Loki continued eating in silence, and after breakfast, everyone picked up where they had left off with the Aether. No shit, no fan, and Darcy didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed.

By the end of the day, however, Darcy had become certain that relieved was definitely one thing she was not. Although she now understood Loki’s motive for wanting to execute the mugger, she still hadn’t forgiven him for abandoning her in the alley, and she was quite certain that he was still mad at her for supposedly calling him a monster. He’d avoided conversation with her pretty much the entire day, and, when at nine o’clock Jane had finally called it a night, he had simply disappeared into his bedroom without so much as a good night to anybody.

Darcy was losing him again, but this time, she found herself unable to just sit back and let it happen.

That was why, at about half past nine, as Thor, Jane, and Erik argued heatedly in the kitchen about who would get to shower first, Darcy walked resolutely up to Loki’s bedroom door and knocked firmly. Just as she’d expected, she received no answer, but, sighing, she entered anyway and closed the door behind herself.

Loki sat on the edge of his bed, the only light in his room emanating from the small lamp on his bedside cabinet, sharpening his small dagger using what Darcy was fairly sure was one of Thor’s leather belts. He looked up as Darcy entered, a mildly surprised expression on his face.

“We need to talk,” Darcy said.

“Why in the Nine Realms would you want to talk to me?” Loki asked quietly, looking back down and continuing to sharpen his knife.

“Because God knows you won’t talk to me first,” Darcy replied.

“That is not an answer.”

“Fine,” Darcy snapped. “I wanna talk to you, and believe you me that even I’m shocked to hear myself say this, because I still wanna be your friend, Loki.”

Slowly, gradually, Loki ceased his stropping and put his dagger and Thor’s belt down on the bed beside him. He then looked up at Darcy, his expression mild.

Darcy decided to take this as a sign that she should continue saying her piece. “The man whom you wanted to kill in the alley . . .” she began slowly, making sure to choose her words carefully “. . . now that I know it was more of a chivalry thing and not a kill-all-humans thing, I can understand it, but I by no means condone it, and neither do I in any way, shape, or form regret saving the man’s life.”

“I understand,” Loki said simply.

It was a better response than Darcy could’ve hoped for, so, feeling slightly more at ease, she kept talking. “Now, about the Dark Elf whom I killed—”

“Don’t,” Loki said timidly, shutting his eyes and shaking his head. “You don’t have to—”

“Let me finish,” Darcy snapped again. Her temper was still a little too short for interruptions.

Loki opened his eyes and studied her for a moment. Then, he nodded once.

“I killed that Dark Elf,” Darcy said firmly, holding Loki’s gaze. “I know it. I feel it. And not a day goes by that I don’t wish I hadn’t had to do what I did. But do I regret doing it? No. And admittedly, the memory of it doesn’t keep me up at night either. Now, I don’t know if that makes me a bad person, but frankly, I don’t care anymore. Because it was either him or me, and I hadn’t done anything wrong. And no, Loki, it wouldn’t have mattered if he was human, or Aesir, or Jotun. The only difference between me and the Elf and you and the mugger is that I had no choice but to kill in order to survive, whereas you had all the choice in the world.

“And for the record, I don’t give a shit that you’re not human, Loki,” Darcy added quickly. “In fact, I’d love to see you in your Frost Giant form someday, if you let me.”

Darcy finished speaking feeling confident that Loki couldn’t possibly go on being mad at her now. She was most definitely still mad at him, but she was prepared to give him his space and wait until he was ready to come to her himself and apologize. She gave him a second now to see if he had anything to say to her at this very moment, but when he remained silent, she turned around and headed back for the door.

“I wish to be your friend, too, Darcy.”

Darcy froze, her hand on the doorknob, and felt relief flood her entire body. She turned back around to face Loki again. “Is there anything you’d like to say to me, then?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Something I’d like to give you, actually,” Loki said, and before Darcy could ask what the hell that was supposed to mean, he was reaching into the top drawer of his bedside cabinet and pulling out—

“My glasses!” Darcy exclaimed. She rushed forward, took the glasses from Loki’s outstretched hand, and put them on gratefully. “What—?” she spluttered dumbfoundedly. “How—?”

“I picked them up for you after you had already left the alley,” Loki said. “They had fallen inside one of the empty boxes by the wall. It’s no wonder you overlooked them.”

“But you left the alley before I did,” Darcy said, now even more confused. “Hey! How did you know I tried looking for my glasses in the garbage?”

Loki didn’t answer, but by this point, he didn’t need to. Her heart beating very fast, Darcy knew exactly how he had known that she had tried looking for her glasses.

“You never left the alley,” she breathed, and there was now a warm feeling swelling steadily in her chest. “You stayed behind, didn’t you? Just invisible?”

After several seconds of contemplation, Loki nodded once.

The warm feeling was now spreading through Darcy like a melting marshmallow. “You were the cat!” she exclaimed, another piece falling into place. “I mean—that black cat was a projection of yours, wasn’t it? Is that how you found my glasses?”

Again, Loki nodded.

Darcy grinned at him, all the animosity that she had felt for him earlier long gone. “So then after I left the alley all you had to do was grab my glasses quickly and then make sure you beat me back to the apartment,” she concluded.

For the third time, Loki nodded wordlessly, his lips pressed together as if he resented admitting this information to Darcy.

“But why?” Darcy cried out incredulously. “Why did you have to hide yourself from me? Why make me think that you’d abandoned me?”

Loki smiled at her sadly. “I suppose because I am not a good person, Darcy.”

“We’ll see about that,” Darcy said defiantly, looking firmly at Loki and bursting with happiness. “Although . . .” she then said cheekily, now watching Loki shrewdly out of the corner of her eye, “. . . you should know that I don’t fully trust anyone who can’t be taken down by my Taser . . . .”

“Is that so?” Loki asked, and there was sudden humor in his eyes. “Because my miserable excuse for a brother couldn’t be taken down by that shock toy either, and yet you trust him, do you not?”

“Actually . . . .” Darcy began, biting back a giggle. So Thor had never told Loki the story of his and Darcy’s first interaction . . . .

“What,” Loki asked dismissively, “are you telling me you do not trust dear old Thor?”

“Oh, no,” Darcy said casually, continuing to keep her face straight with great effort, “I’d trust Thor with my life.”

“Then . . . ?” Loki said slowly, narrowing his eyes as he looked at Darcy.

Darcy merely raised her eyebrows at him in response.

“You cannot be serious . . . .” Loki muttered, his eyebrows knitting together in clear disbelief. “I suppose it could only have happened after he had been rendered powerless by our father . . . .”

“Right after he fell from Asgard and Jane hit him with her van, actually,” Darcy explained finally, grinning madly. “He was freaking out about getting banished and losing Mew-Mew and overall acting crazy, so . . . I reacted.”

Loki looked so delighted as he listened to Darcy’s account that Darcy might as well have been telling him Christmas was coming early this year, and as soon as she finished talking, he burst into a fit of laughter, choking out, “The mighty Thor—the unparalleled God of Thunder—brought down by his own weapon—”

“‘His own weapon’?” Darcy asked quizzically, but then realized what Loki meant. “Oh, right. Electricity. Lightning. Never thought of it quite like that,” she added with a laugh.

They continued laughing, and Darcy wondered if she’d ever realized before how much she did that around him, or how happy she felt when they weren’t fighting, or how downright seductive his damned smirks actually were. Then, abruptly, Loki stopped laughing and said, “Did you say Jane hit Thor with a van?”

“Twice,” Darcy answered, nodding seriously.

“Tell me everything,” Loki demanded, but no sooner had those words left his mouth than he succumbed to a giant yawn. “Tomorrow,” he added sheepishly, looking more tired than ever.

“After work. On the balcony. And bring wine,” Darcy told him sternly.

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Loki said with a grin.

“So we’re still friends then, Jazz Hands?”

“Of course, Little Mortal.”

But as Darcy departed from Loki’s bedroom, feeling light and happy as a sunray, she was suddenly overcome by a suspicion. A suspicion that maybe, just maybe, she wanted to be more than friends . . . .